Friday, August 28, 2015

Minions has officially joined Furious 7, The Avengers : Age of Ultron and Jurassic World as the fourth BILLION dollar grosser worldwide in 2015. Three of the four (Minions, Furious and Jurassic) are Universal Pictures releases, an astonishing achievement which has helped Universal break the yearly box-office record, even though there are still four months left in the year.

Tuesday, August 25, 2015

Disney has announced that September 3rd will be the day they launch the official STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS toy line, with a day long unveiling (unboxing) of the toys, leading up to their midnight release on "Force Friday".

Here are the details:

"Star Wars: The Force Awakens products are set to be unveiled in the world’s first ever global live toy unboxing event. Unfolding over 18 hours in 15 cities and 12 countries, the event will see highlights from the range of epic merchandise revealed in a rolling New Year’s Eve style celebration featuring top digital stars from the Maker Studios network.

“Star Wars toys have always played an important role in how our fans interact with the saga,” says Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy. “They’ve inspired multiple generations to relive the experience of the movies and to create new adventures all their own. These spectacular Star Wars: The Force Awakens products will continue that tradition.”

Kicking off in Sydney, Australia on the morning of September 3 and continuing through Asia, Europe, Canada, and North and South America, selections from the new toy line will debut to global fanfare leading up to retailers around the globe opening their doors at midnight."

Saturday, August 15, 2015

This weekend's D23 Expo put on by Disney has included a lot of news regarding the many major brands of Disney, including Star Wars and Pixar, and featured guest appearances by Harrison Ford and Johnny Depp. Below are just a few of the highlights so far (including the first official Star Wars: The Force Awakens poster, shown above).

The first image from the set of Star Wars: Rogue One was released, showing the band of scoundrels that pull of the heist of the Death Star plans from the original trilogy. They also now call the film "A Star Wars Story", and no longer an "Anthology" film, whatever that means.

The much-rumored talk that Jurassic World director Colin Trevorrow would direct Star Wars Episode IX was confirmed as well. It's not surprising, seeing that Jurassic World is now approaching $1.6 BILLION at the global box office.

Perhaps the most exciting bit of Star Wars news released today was the fact that both Disneyland and Walt Disney World will be getting a new "Star Wars Land", featuring immersive rides set in the world of the Star Wars films. Here are a few of the concept drawing:

In other news, the first footage and poster for Jon Favreau's live-action retelling of The Jungle Book was revealed. They stated this may be the most technologically-advanced film ever made.

Johnny Depp showed up in full Pirates of the Caribbean regalia to help hype the return of Captain Jack Sparrow (along with Orlando Bloom's character Will Turner) in the fifth installment of the franchise, entitled Dead Men Tell No Tales.

In addition to the Star Wars addition to the Disney parks, they also announced Toy Story, Frozen and Avatar will also be getting attractions at the parks. Here are a couple samples of the "Toy Story Land" concept art:

Finally, in other Pixar related news, the mouse house announced that the upcoming slate of films include two originals (The Good Dinosaur and Coco), as well as four sequels (Finding Dory, Toy Story 4, Cars 3 and The Incredibles 2). Here are the posters for the six films:

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What do you think? Are you excited about the news coming from Disney's D23 Expo? Leave your comments below or tweet me @FiveStarFlicks or @5StarFlicks

2015 has already seen the release of three BILLION DOLLAR grossers (Furious 7, The Avengers: Age of Ultron, and Jurassic World), which all rank in the top 6 all-time. That would be a banner year if the calendar ended right now, but we're barely past the halfway point and we still have THREE billion dollar franchise releases left to go with James Bond's SPECTRE, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 2, and Star Wars: The Force Awakens all set to come out in November and December.

Safe to say that 2015 should end up shattering all previous box office records.